


the centre cannot hold

by irreputablyyours



Series: prompt fics [4]
Category: Music RPF, Oasis (Band)
Genre: Angst, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-19 02:55:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29992818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irreputablyyours/pseuds/irreputablyyours
Summary: In his head, he could've fixed things.
Relationships: Liam Gallagher/Noel Gallagher
Series: prompt fics [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2201961
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11





	the centre cannot hold

**Author's Note:**

> Written for prompt #6: “It wasn’t supposed to happen like that.”
> 
> Also, I stole that title from [Yeats](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43290/the-second-coming). Am I ever moving up in the world.

_2009_

In his head, it was almost romantic. Paris, city of lights. Paris, city of love.

He doesn’t know why he’d thought that way. Paris had never been his and Liam’s – they aren’t the fucking Beatles, no matter how much the kid thought he was John Lennon.

But he’d had it all planned out, in his head. Paris was where they’d fix things. Clear the air. They could fix the sense of discontent that had been creeping over Noel for years, the idea that Liam was holding him back, keeping him from the life he really wanted. Somehow.

Noel had it all planned out. Roses, chocolates, walks by the Seine, expensive restaurants. (Why? Because he was rich. Because he was a romantic at heart. And maybe maybe maybe because Liam was right – at the end of the day, there was little else Noel loved more than Liam.

Little else that he hated, too).

But it all fell apart, came undone in his hands, the band falling apart at its seams. He and Liam have been fighting nonstop and Noel doesn’t know how to end it.

He watches Liam smash his guitar, and thinks _I don’t know how to fix this._

_I can’t._

/

He sits in his car, the passenger door ajar, one foot on the still-hot pavement. The driver keeps glancing at him, waiting for him to give the word. _Stay or go. Stagnate or progress. Stay twenty-seven forever or get on with your life._ It should be obvious. He’d _known,_ really, years ago, that he had to leave. Written his own songs and set them aside and told Sara about his plans and everything. He’d just – he’d always thought he could fix things. That at the end of the day, what he and Liam had was worth salvaging.

He hates it when he’s wrong.

“Let’s go,” he says to the driver. His voice sounds like he’s swallowed glass.

The driver nods, doesn’t say anything. For a long time, Noel doesn’t either. It’s only when they hit the airport that he talks.

“It wasn’t supposed to happen like that,” he says, mostly to himself.


End file.
